Taylor Swift’s seventh album, Lover, was released in 2019, and included four hit: “Me,” “You Need to Calm Down,” “Lover,” and “The Man.” Swift had also intended to release the single “Cruel Summer,” which she wrote with Anne Clark (St. Vincent) and co-producer Jack Antonoff; and now she’s finally dropped the track.
Swift revealed her “new” single during her Eras Tour performance in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and explained to the sold-out crowd that the coronavirus pandemic prevented her from releasing “Cruel Summer” in 2020: “‘Cruel Summer — that song was my pride and joy on that album. That was my favorite song. You have conversations before the album comes out and everyone around weighs in on what they think should be singles and I was finally about to have my favorite song become the single off of ‘Lover’ … And I’m not trying to blame the global pandemic that we had, but that is something that happened that stopped ‘Cruel Summer’ from ever being a single.”
“Cruel Summer” was somewhat of a sleeper hit until it began climbing up the streaming charts in 2023. The fan favorite was also featured in the 2022 Amazon Prime series The Summer I Turned Pretty, contributing to streams of the song jumping 120%. Swift thanked fans for making the song so popular on streaming services: “So what’s happening right now, thanks to you, and honestly, no one understands how this is happening, but you guys have streamed ‘Cruel Summer’ so much right now in 2023 that it’s at the top. It’s rising on the streaming charts so crazy. My label just decided to make it the next single. It’s truly, truly perplexing to me because I just haven’t had something like this happen in my career.”
Take a listen to “Cruel Summer” – here.
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